


We'll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

by Brigdh



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Gen, Nuclear Warfare, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 04:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigdh/pseuds/Brigdh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The shinigami after Hiroshima.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for questionable537. Title is from The Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes".

They could have pulled in every worker from every one of JuOhCho's divisions, and that still wouldn't have been enough to deal with all the dead. None of the Shokan workers had time for the paperwork; they left it to Konoe to deal with. He'd ceased pretending to organize his in-box and out-box; the forms were stacked in wobbling piles leaning against the walls of his office. They were all in Hiroshima now to deal with... with this. Anything wrong in their normal districts would have to wait.

 _They don't realize they're dead_ , Tsuzuki had told him on one of his brief stops back, ferrying a huddle of souls. _It was so quick. They remember a lightening flash. Light. They say- they say that couldn't have been enough to level a city._

Hiroshima had always had the best okonomiyaki. But no one was bringing him souvenirs now. The off-duty shinigami drifted futilely in the hallways, empty-handed and red-eyed and silent.

 _They left their shadows_ , Tatsumi-san had said abruptly, haunted. He had looked as if he was barely there. Konoe didn't think he'd slept in days, and had wondered whether the stress had broken the newcomer until he saw the photographs for himself.

He'd clapped Tsuzuki on the shoulder as they left, said something vaguely encouraging. Tsuzuki'd tried to smile, poor boy, but the expression only stretched his lips thin and pale and made the skin seem too thin over his bones. It died quickly, and he'd stared at Konoe with those eyes he was so sensitive about, pleading for something Konoe couldn't grant.

He pretended he didn't notice. _Only a few more, right? Just bring them back, and we'll see what can be done._ Nothing. Send them on. Meifu had long since run out of places to put them while they were processed, and souls littered the streets and parks like beggars. _It'll all be over before you know it._ It took a long moment before Tsuzuki had nodded, fingers too tight around the case folders he held. Tatsumi met Konoe's gaze silently, dulled past accusation or pain.

It wasn't fair, but there was nothing else to do. One hundred thousand dead, two hundred thousand dead; numbers that high were all indistinguishable, meaningless. Konoe couldn't imagine that many people. His employees, his small bunch of proud, powerful, crazy shinigami were meant for more than herding huge groups of nameless dead; the overtime and stress was destroying them, and their chief was too tired to even hear their complaints. The mechanical bureaucracy of JuOhCho was the only thing left to him: sign his name, stamp the form, send it on to the next office. Promise them it'd all be over soon.


End file.
